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Running Head: THE TITANIC DISASTER 1

THE TITANIC TRAGEDY 7

The Titanic disaster

Student’s name

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Introduction

A disaster is an abrupt or sudden calamitous action that interrupts human activities in a specific area. In most cases, material, environmental, economic, and human resources are destroyed, exceeding the society's ability to adjust and cope with the situation after a calamity (Zobel, 2011). A disaster happens when a peril occurs and affects the most vulnerable people in a community. The combination of vulnerability, hazards, and lack of people's ability to minimize a specific risk's negative impact leads to a disaster.

RMS Titanic collision

There have been many disasters that have happened across the globe for many years. For instance, many disasters have been caused by hurricane winds in South American, resulting in thousands of deaths and destruction of property valued in millions. But the most famous and the deadliest catastrophe that is most remembered is the RMS Titanic disaster. On 14th April, in 1912, the most famous RMS Titanic made collision with an iceberg during her maiden voyage.

After about two hours and forty minutes, the Titanic led to about one thousand, five hundred, and one death, both adult and children. The deaths were more than two-thirds of all the passengers totaling two thousand, two hundred and one passengers. The Titanic was a colossal ship. Its collision with the iceberg and later sinking and causing massive deaths is one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters known in history and stands to be the most famous.

According to the researches done by various scientists, there is evidence that shows how people behave when there is an emergency or calamity. In case of a disaster, personal interest becomes first with very little interest in other individuals in the same situation. Individual interest reaction supersedes social cohesion. According to those who survived the Titanic tragedy, the condition meant life or death to all the passengers.

According to the research done on the RMS Titanic is that it had only twenty lifeboats. According to marine experts, the twenty lifeboats are that it could only accommodate only half of the people aboard the Titanic. The other gap discovered is that the desk personnel in charge of the lifeboat exacerbated the situation by launching a partially empty lifeboat. According to those that survived is that failure to secure a seat in a lifeboat was automatic a death sentence. The main question that arises from the twenty lifeboats is are the following.

Did the physical strength of a person determine the rate of securing a seat in the lifeboat? The second question is, did the vulnerable, such as the old and the children, hand a better chance of securing a seat in the lifeboat. Did a person's responsibility in the Titanic, such as a passenger or a crew member, increase the person's survival? The last question could be the best options, considering the titanic took more than one and a half hours before sinking entirely.

The titanic fateful journey leading to the research question

There was no problem associated with the Titanic when it started its voyage journey on Wednesday, 10th April, in 1912 from Southampton in England to New York in the United States. The Titanic made the two major port calls passengers' taking in Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland. After a journey of about four days from Ireland and approximately four hundred miles, Fredric Fleet spotted an iceberg directly ahead of the Titanic.

After a few minutes, the Titanic collided with the iceberg, and the alarm was sounded, and every passenger was alert, and the evasive action started immediately. The collision action was so intense that the iceberg caused severe damage to the Titanic ship's starboard side. Within minutes, water poured inside the Titanic, causing flooding five the watertight compartment made the Titanic's bulkhead sink below the waterline.

Research question

My main research question am trying to get the answer is, "whose fault was it"? In my research question, I will investigate whose fault was it" that lead to massive death and destruction of property carried by ship as well as the ship in general. My investigation will include the ship designer, builder, owner, captain, lifeboat officer, wireless operator, and Californian captain.

The famous gentleman by the name of Thomas Andrews was the designer of the Titanic. Thomas Andrews had designed the ship such that it had sixteen watertight, and for that reason, he believed that the ship was unsinkable. The designer's problem never considered the flaws in the bulkhead (Gracie & Thayer, 2005). The Titanic had deficiencies in the bulkhead height, and that is why when the iceberg struck the ship, the first five watertight Titanic compartments were first to be flooded. As a result of the water's weight pulling down the ship's bow's weight, there was no doubt that the Titanic could not be saved.

After the ship's investigation and inspection, Thomas Andrews concluded that it was difficult to save the ship. Originally Thomas Andrew had designed the Titanic two carry sixty-four lifeboat. However, Thomas had reduced the lifeboat's original capacity to twenty lifeboats, consisting of fourteen wooden lifeboats, which had sixty-five passengers’ capacity each.

It also consists of another four Englehardt collapsible lifeboats, which could only accommodate forty passengers each, and there were two emergency lifeboats with a passenger capacity of forty people each. Therefore, the total lifeboat capacity by the time the Titanic was striking the iceberg was one thousand, one hundred and seventy-eight people. Information evidence from Titanic's Clearance Certificate signed by EJ Sharpe, an immigration officer, is that the Titanic had two thousand, two hundred and eight passengers. Eight hundred and ninety-two crew and one thousand, three hundred and sixteen passengers when the Titanic departed from Queenstown.

Secondly, there were some mistakes made by the Titanic builders. According to research studies, approximately more than three million rivets were used in the ship's construction. After the Titanic tragedy, research is done indicated that most of the rivets used were substandardly recovered from the wreck. After the titanic collision with the iceberg, most of the sub-standard iron broke, which resulted in most of the ship coming out. According to research, if the Titanic had been built using the most quality iron material, it could have withstood the iceberg's impact, and the chance is that the ship could not have sunk.

Thirdly, the ship Bruce Ismay owner, a chairman of the White Star Line, was the ship's passenger. Since Bruce wanted to guarantee passengers that the ship was capable of completing the journey in time than the other ships offering the same services, he continuously pressurized the captain to maintain high speed throughout the journey at all the cost. On the other hand, the ship captain had ignored warning conveyed to the Titanic by several ships. The captain also failed to order the ship to slow down when it was approaching the iceberg. The captain again delayed giving the order to load the lifeboats (Hall, 1986). According to the individual who survived is that there was one hour delay in launching the first lifeboat.

The other person responsible for people's death during the Titanic tragedy was the ship's lifeboat officer for failing to insist on loading the lifeboats to full capacity. On the other hand, the Ship's Wireless Operator, John George Phillips, ignored the warning message sent to Titanic by Californian, a nearby ship. Intend Phillips was sending messages to passengers who were on board. Stanley Load was the captain in charge of a Californian ship.

The Titanic was so close to the Californian that the passengers were seen the Californian's lightings by the time of the accident. The captain from the Titanic tried to reach the captain from the Californian, but all was in vain since Stanley had switched off the radio operator. If the radio operator was on, the chances are that Stanly could have been reached, and the California ship could have been used to rescue passengers from Titanic.

Solutions

The most people to be accused of the Titanic tragedy are the ship's builder, the ship's lifeboat's officer. According to the designer's initial idea, if everything was implemented strictly based on the designer's original objective, there could be minimal death during the Titanic tragedy. The builder of the ship did not use quality rivet as proposed by the designer. Sub-standard rivet could not have sustained the collision of the iceberg. On the other hand, the ship's lifeboat's officer made the mistake of allowing the ship to take off Queenstown's journey without the full lifeboat capacity, as advocated initially by the ship designer. The lifeboat designer's maximum capacity could have ensured that almost every person in the Titanic was saved.

Primary Sources of information

In my research paper, I have gathered information about the books written by individuals who had survived the Titanic tragedy. Most of my data have occurred from the book by the title “The Loss of the S.S. Titanic." Information from the experiences of the individuals who survived is the most trusted primary source since first-hand information. The most question that is still unanswered is the reason behind the statement that the Titanic was unsinkable.

Conclusion.

In conclusion, this essay paper's main objective is that every individual needs to play his/her part during the implementation of an activity. When every person plays his/her role, there are minimal chances of death and property destruction if a calamity was to occur. According to this research paper, most individuals failed to perform the duties they were legally assigned.

References

Gracie, C. A., & Thayer, J. B. (2005). Titanic: A Survivor's Story & the Sinking of the S.S. Titanic. Chicago Review Press.

Hall, W. (1986). Social class and survival on the S.S. Titanic. Social science & medicine, 22(6), 687-690.

Zobel, C. W. (2011). Representing perceived tradeoffs in defining disaster resilience. Decision Support Systems, 50(2), 394-403.